The Irrelevant Bug
by Spot and Punk
Summary: The final chapter, House says goodbye. H/W Friendship
1. Chapter 1

'**The Irrelevant Bug', Chapter 1**

The sun sneaking cautiously over the top of the mathematics building, casts its tentative rays across the rest of the university's mish-mashed skyline and Princeton's streets are quiet with only the unfortunate few scurrying about with bowed heads and ashen faces. Windows dotted randomly, scatter yellow warmth out onto the dusky sidewalks as steam rises from the sides of buildings, fighting against the bitter cold.

Wandering around his apartment switching on lights as he goes, House drips a trail of water marking his path from shower, to bedroom, through the hallway and finally to the living room. Using the furniture and walls to hobble about, he cradles the phone between his neck and chin nodding sporadically. Wet footprints circle the sofa, fading as he moves.

His face is serious, mouth set in a tight, grim line. His body too, is alert, on edge, ready for action. He mumbles affirmatives and asks the what, where and when questions. As he speaks he fights against the cracks in his voice, against the weakness he can feel creeping into his words.

Once he has signed off the call, he puts the phone back in its cradle and pulls the towel tighter around his waist. He stands still in the middle of the living room and sucks air in, blows air out; rests and repeats.

A well-timed drip of water on to the tip of his nose shakes him from his thoughts and forces him to get ready for the day with all that it will bring. He shuffles through to his bedroom and opens the dresser, trying to find some clean boxers, cursing laundry day and its appalling timing. Once he has pulled on some pants and hooked a t-shirt over his head, he sits back on his bed feeling as though he's been punched in the gut.

He reaches automatically for the Vicodin on his beside table and shakes two into his palm. There are some types of pain you can numb and others that gnaw at your soul, ripping it, shredding it, destroying it. He swallows the pills down and sits, waits.

The cane leans against his bed and before he grabs it, he shoves the bottle of pills in his pocket, glad of the reassuring completeness of last night's prescription. This is all taking too long. He normally gets in at just under 'by the skin of you teeth' when it comes to making it any place on time. This is like trying to manoeuvre through syrup. Time drips and splotches with House caught helplessly in its sticky trap.

He pulls a suitcase out of his closet and lays it open on his dresser. Haphazardly, he throws in a few shirts, some pants and underwear. Hobbling into the bathroom looking for his toothbrush, he catches his reflection in the mirror. Pausing for a moment, the reflection staring back at him looks lost, cast adrift like a kite without its tail.

With a final tug on the obstinate zipper, House manages to close the suitcase and grabbing it firmly in his left hand, braces himself against the additional weight. Lurching wildly at first, he stumbles off to his left as though gravity is pulling him down. Righting himself, he takes one last look at his bedroom before he switches off the light, throwing the room back into the dusky glow of early morning. When he gets back here, everything will be settled, final, banished to memory alone.

Passing his desk, he grabs his cell phone and taps at the keypad. He thinks briefly about calling Wilson but makes do with leaving a message on Cuddy's voicemail. He isn't coming in, something has come up, he has to leave town for a week or so. None of it she will believe, she'll think he is scamming her, trying to get out of clinic duty. He doesn't really care, he is used to the lack of faith, lack of trust; those loaded nouns mistaken as the common markers of friendship. What do you call the thing between them then?

He locks his apartment door then checks for any mail he might have missed hoping for some sort of warning, a sign, something that would make this hurt less. Finding only the sort of junk mail that promises the perfect pizza and thousands of dollars for your unwanted junk, he slams the little metal door of his mailbox a bit too hard and heads out into the icy morning.

A pause is required before he can summon the nerve to navigate the two steps down to the sidewalk. He glances up the street, trying to make it look like he has something to check out, to make it look like steps in this weather don't have the potential to tip him flat on his ass. The cane and leg hit the second step perfectly. If it weren't for the ice this would be a textbook 'stairs for the cripple' moment- if it weren't for the ice. The cane flicks out from under him and sends waves of shock singing through his bones, his muscles and his nerves. He grabs onto the handrail and closes his eyes, for a second. Suck it up, get over it, everyone slips on ice, this is no big deal. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Reaching the sidewalk feels like much more of an achievement than he is used to, but he is glad for the momentary distraction. The irony of this moment doesn't fail to register. Getting down steps is a tiny thing, but his leg makes it much bigger - what is it they say about molehills and mountains?

The very thought of this whole trip makes him want to hurl, makes him want to elope to Hawaii with some faceless woman and drink Mojito's till he doesn't - can't - feel _this_.

The sun shining from the east end of the street makes the surface of the sidewalks seem like glass, reflective and refractive all at once. The night hours have frozen yesterday's slush solid, smooth, like marble slabs in a slaughterhouse. It suits him. He feels like ice, cold and solid, danger lurking hidden just under the surface.

All this he doesn't give a second thought to.

The weight of his trip presses down on him, squashes and crushes all potential feeling, sensation. All except the terrible, terrible ache in the pit of his belly. If he doesn't keep moving, doesn't keep the minutia of this trip at the very front of his mind, he knows he will be overwhelmed with all that lies ahead of him, stretching off into his future, desolate, alone, without.

It takes him more time than he wants to get the car door open. A combination of rubbing the key in his hands and blowing into the lock eventually succeeds in thawing the mechanism. He dumps his case on the passenger seat and scrambles in the foot well amongst the detritus of the past week for the scraper and the can of de-icer he remembers using once last winter.

The watch on his wrist sounds an alarm, one set by Wilson in a futile attempt to get him up in the mornings. The morning has officially begun; it is no longer an unreasonable time in the night, the day, whatever. Now it is Tuesday. He doesn't want it to be Tuesday. He deeply, deeply wants it to be Monday again. The crappy Monday of a few short hours ago, the day that had seen the first of the winter hit hard. The day that had seen him fight with Wilson, with Cuddy, with the moron patient who almost didn't lie, until it was almost too late.

The repetitive scraping against the thick ice etched onto the windows of his car bears the build up of tension, breaking of his numbness. He works over the windows again and again until only the very edges are frosted, glistening. His hands are red, numb and this, too, is a welcome thing. He knows that as soon as he starts the car and the heaters blast out their warm air, his hands will tingle, burn; _feel. _

He turns the key in the ignition and his heap of a car splutters into something like life. The engine wheezes and blasts swathes of unhealthy smoke up into the cool, morning air. House stares aimlessly out of the windshield waiting for the steam to clear, hoping that his mind will too. The engine continues to complain until it gradually starts to sound like all the hundreds of separate components of the car's very being are starting to collaborate. Like it will move forward and take him wherever he wants; a triumph of man over the laws of nature.

Just when he is beginning to fire out the nerve impulses required to make the car move forward, a tap on his window startles him.

"Got space for me?"

House nods, not trusting himself to say anything useful or in any way appropriate. He feels the car shudder when the trunk slams shut, and dip when his passenger climbs in, throwing House's case onto the back seat. He shoves the stick into 'drive' and releases the hand-break. Without checking his mirrors, House presses down heavily on the gas peddle and the Chrysler jolts off, a little too fast, up the street.

So this is really happening then.

_**Okay, here goes… Big, huge thanks to Iyimgrace for tending my fragile ego and being an ace beta-rer.**_


	2. Chapter 2

'**The Irrelevant Bug', Chapter 2**

It takes an age to get out of the city. They hit all the stop lights possible from House's street and then stuck in an inexplicable queue punctuated with red break lights flashing on and off in exactly the way that they tell you not to do in Driver's Ed.

Driving faster now that they are out of the confines of the city, the car remains silent. Wilson is happy enough to snooze while they travel across state, and happy too that House let him in the car in the first place. Something can come from this.

When House pulls in at a rest stop, he nudges Wilson awake.

"I need to pee." A statement, fact.

Wilson manages a grunt in reply and lets his mind wake fully before he dares to let it out of the car. It doesn't take him long to catch up to the man with the cane and the crazy limp; driving so long will do that to you. He doesn't think he should say anything and he almost, _almost _makes it past the coffee stand before he feels the need to make his presence known.

"Just so you know, I'm not going to bring it up." Okay, a curve ball there, not how he thought he would begin this.

"Bring what up?" House is startled from his thoughts and seems genuinely confused.

"I said I wasn't going to bring it up."

"For you to have said that you-"

Wilson cuts him off, "-If you want to bring it up, want to talk about it, that would be ok with me."

"Wilson, you suck at this, you know that?"

"I'm just saying, you know, if you want?"

"Wilson?"

"House?"

"Shut up."

With that, there are no more words until there is one empty bladder, one full belly and a tank replete with gas.

Once they get going again, the peace that had enabled Wilson's nap, is nowhere to be found and his mind buzzes through the semantic fields of death, trying to gauge the right thing to say. He lays his head back against the passenger side window and lets his focus wander over the industrial edges of the Pennsylvania Turnpike as it morphs into heavy woodland.

"You know, when I said that thing about not bringing 'it' up? I meant the thing yesterday, right?" Wilson makes sure their stupid fight isn't leaching into the atmosphere in the car, and thinks he may have made some sort of inroad into the permafrost that is House's mood.

"I know."

"Because, I just wanted to be clear about that."

"Are _you_ even listening to yourself? I only say because I wanted to be clear that _I'm_ not. Listening, that is. I'm not _listening_… to you." For once, Wilson can see that House has almost succeeded in tying himself up in a verbal knot of avoidance. He sees a chink in the great House-defense, and digs in for a long ride.

"Ok."

"Ok."

The next time they speak, they are passing over the Susquehanna River Bridge and Wilson feels compelled by the wonder of physics to not let this moment pass. The river here is nearly a mile wide and, to be suspended, that high over that depth of water, really seems to be something worth noticing. It isn't everyday one gets to break out of the furniture of one's every day life.

"You know, it really is quite something." Wilson lets his words linger, permeate through the funk of House's mood, "Don't you think? House?"

"Huh?"

"It's quite something isn't it? Crossing a river. I mean, if you really think about it for a minute."

"I don't need a minute. Have you lost your mind? Are you disguised as Wilson when in fact, you are an eternal dork of the first order?" House takes his eyes off the road to afford Wilson the full benefit of his patented 'reduce-all-who-surrender-to-a-bowl-of-jello' glare, "Can't you just… keep these things to yourself?"

House isn't in the mood for this play and Wilson knows it. He just feels quite helpless when it comes to the dark tides of House's emotional state. He had already tried 'pretend-everything-was-sunny-and-shiny' and he knows 'ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away' never works. Next in his bag of tricks is the most revered of all the House wrangling techniques, the 'wait-and-let-him-make-the-first-move'. A classic manouevre yet one so advanced that Wilson hardly ever dares to try it. In fact, to date, he hasn't ever dared to try it. It isn't in his genetic make-up to just let House be. The last time he tried that, House had ended up with half a leg and a dead relationship.

Miles and miles pass and Wilson can barely contain the words threatening to pour out of his mouth like putrid water. To the close observer, the almost imperceptible twitch tugging at his lips and forcing them into a sneer, might give away his game. Thankfully, _the_ _master _of keen observation is completely occupied with his peculiar, zombie-like driving; something which sets off Wilson's House Barometer like nobody's business. Once they hit West Virginia, he can't help himself for a moment longer.

"So… I'm sorry for your loss."

"I didn't lose her. She died."

"Right. Well, I'm sorry House, I can't imagine how this…" he trails off as he realizes that euphemisms for 'this is shitty, this sucks' aren't going to work with House.

"Right." Zombie-driver returns and Wilson can see House's eyes glaze over with the hypnotic call of the central reservation disappearing endlessly over the horizon.

"What's the plan?" When an answer isn't forthcoming, he rambles on, "I mean, what is it that you need to do first? I suppose, you need to organize the funeral, the cars, the flowers…"

As Wilson rambles on, he is kind of grateful in a weird way, that House has chosen to tune out. Sometimes the litany of grief just keeps coming and he can't help himself. He is admittedly, very good in this kind of situation, with normal people that is, and does very well by left-behind family members - a side-effect of his specialty. Explanations here don't seem appropriate though; despite the recipient. Keeping his eyes glued to the road ahead, he willingly loses track of his own thoughts, locked as they are deep in his head.

Wilson, hasn't worked out just how House has managed to navigate this far. He thinks back over the last ten years and can count on one hand the number of times he has left the state. He doesn't completely trust House and isn't brilliantly sure they are going the right way but truthfully, Wilson kind of likes not being in control. Everything about his life is planned, organized and often out-sourced to various companies; his film choices, his cleaning service, his laundry.

Nice then that he's along for House's ride; wherever it takes them.

_Big, grandiose thanks to Iyimgrace, the ace beta._


	3. Chapter 3

'**The Irrelevant Bug, Chapter 3**

Almost five hours into their journey, House reaches the conclusion that they will be arriving soon. He's got to that slightly giddy stage where all he can see in front of him is a dotted white line; even when he blinks. His eyes are fixed on the road ahead, his neck feels like if he tried to move it, the vertebra would snap, one by one, and his hands don't need any input from him to keep them heading in the right direction. He harbours a vague but intense urge to drive off I-81 at the next exit and just stop; but acting on that is… out of the question. This is all pre-determined, out of his hands – literally.

Wilson witters in the passenger seat intermittently, and House is reassured by the fact that Wilson is not stupid enough to try to break through the funk he can't shake.

Every now and again, House suffers through the act of responding to some banal empty thought in a, hopefully, appropriately cranky manner. When the white noise of Wilson's ridiculous coping strategy begins to resemble the more frustrating symptoms of tinnitus, House rubs at his ears, unaware that the annoying buzzing sensation isn't just inside his head; a psychosomatic response to this horrible, horrible trip.

When the buzzing reaches a crescendo, he reaches for the volume control of the stereo and flicks it all the way to the right.

Mercifully, Wilson shuts up long enough to lose his train of thought, stare at House, and actually address him, albeit with hands clamped tightly over his ears.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" House doesn't reply, he's glad of the break. "HOUSE!"

"I LOVE THIS SONG. DON'T YOU?"

Wilson flicks the dial back to a more reasonable volume and House can practically see him counting to ten silently.

"House, this sucks, I know that. I can't begin to imagine how this must feel but-"

"Wilson, please! You do know that all these words don't actually mean anything - don't you?"

"To some people, words offer a semblance of comfort."

"Platitudes Wilson, I'm tired of saying it."

"Right. I forgot that you are the anti-folk. I'll try harder to be more… inappropriate. Forget society's usual rules of engagement." Wilson turns his head away staring without real intention, at the increasingly suburban landscape outside.

"Right. We're here."

"Huh?"

"I said, we're here. At my Mom's place." House takes a little twisted comfort at having thrown Wilson off balance by their sudden arrival.

"Oh, okay."

House moves off with his own unique interpretation of mobility, and leaves Wilson to get their bags. He searches under likely hiding places for his mother's spare key; rocks, bushes, in that weird little nook just inside the porch and when he eventually finds it, he sticks it in the lock and turns it. At first it's stiff and the lock resists. It takes him a good hard jerk of the wrist to force the mechanism that pulls him a little too dramatically into the hallway of her home. He had expected the lights to be on, the whiff of coffee brewing in the kitchen and that peculiar, indefinable smell of home.

Instead, the house is dark, the curtains are still drawn and the air is slightly damp, musty without the presence of someone to use it, breathe it, move it.

He switches on the hall light and that makes him feel a little less like an intruder. At this point, Wilson has caught up and is on the verge of saying something when he stops and House sees him decide otherwise.

"I guess she left in a hurry."

The evidence is all around, the coat thrown over the banister, the grocery bag with the contents spilling out and the sound of a radio broadcasting to an empty room somewhere in the house; whoever was last here, had left in a hurry.

House bends down to pick up the carton of milk and the tomatoes that had rolled across the floor, not thinking much past that. The hesitation in his actions speaks of the pervading air of strange. He hasn't ever visited her in this place. She moved in last year, after his father. He's not sure where the kitchen is, doesn't know where she liked to sit, which was her favourite chair. He doesn't like the idea of snooping around and trying to work out all those things for himself. Another reminder of the crappy son he had been.

Feeling like a contestant in some freaky Japanese game-show, he half expects his mother to pop out of a cupboard announcing '10 points Gregory!' whenever he makes a connection to her life here and how she lived it.

Wilson puts the bags down and House watches him as he edges around open doors trying to get his bearings. He has the benefit of being a guest here; House is supposed to know better and this feeling of redundancy, has him paralysed.

As if answering some celestial call to kick-start a chain of events, the phone rings. House follows the sound of the ringer and finds himself in front of his mother's piano. He picks up the receiver and answers, trying to sound like he should be here.

"Hello?"

A man with a tight, high voice speaks and House listens, grateful that the caller has bought his lie.

"Okay, I just arrived. I can be there tomorrow, what's the address? Wait, I uh…" Somehow, Wilson magically shoves a pad and pen under his nose and House suspects that he may well have these things stashed in his jacket for just such a purpose. He scribbles down the address and puts the phone back on the deck.

"Funeral home. Gotta be there in the morning."

"Okay, you hungry?" Wilson asks as he putters off into what House presumes must be the kitchen; Wilson's comfort zone.

House mutters a weak reply then ambles over to the fireplace. On the mantle, there are pictures of his parents together, looking happy. His father looks thin, drawn, despite the smile. The photograph must have been taken toward the end, when they'd been on that last trip to somewhere he didn't ever try to remember. Next to that is one of a pudgy baby, blond curls flopping over his eyes, trying to grab the camera. Then comes one of his graduation day, wide smiles plastered over all three of their faces and his father's arm clamped across his shoulder. They'd gone for a meal, he'd had a little too much to drink and then his parents had left him in his new town, awaiting the start of medical school with a nasty hangover.

He puts them all back carefully, the un-dusted surface leaving a neat space that marks their place. He can hear the clink and clang of Wilson working his cooking 'thing' and almost lets himself pretend that it's his mother in there. That he's home for a visit, that she's glad to see him.

It feels okay to be in here, the rest of the house is daunting and he's actually afraid. For the moment, he is… not happy, that wouldn't be the right word, but he's okay where he is.

He sits down at the piano and has absolutely no intention of playing. It's a place to sit, to rest his leg while it yells at him for making the trip. In front of him some sheets of music sit, slightly ruffled as though she had been playing when she'd had to leave.

The problem with accidents like that was that they left too many lines of conjecture open to those left behind. Everything seems to offer some hint or clue as to what had lead her out onto the road and smack into the soccer mom speeding in the SUV that killed her. What had made her run out like that? Why hadn't she put the shopping away? He remembers that about her, she would always no matter what, put the groceries away first. Like she had to have a full cupboard before the daily cycle of eating the goods within began all over again. As though she could hold that moment and say that 'yes' everything is taken care of, thought about and my boy will not go hungry.

He shuffles the sheets of music, arranges them in the right order then lumbers over to the window noting the darkness gathering outside. Fat, wet flakes of snow make an audible splat as they hit the panes of glass and a shiver not borne of cold, runs right down his back.

Wilson walks into the little sitting room balancing two plates in one of his hands. He gestures to House to join him on the sofa and puts the plates down on the coffee table in front of him.

They eat wordlessly; House knowing that if he stops chewing too long, he may vomit, or scream.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Irrelevant Bug, Chapter 4**

Wilson begins his search in the bureau Blythe kept in the corner of the living room. He rifles through drawers hesitantly, trying not to disturb the order therein. He figures that if anything like a Will had been made, then this would be the best place to find it.

Somewhere in the unfamiliar background noise, he can hear the rumbling snores of House. He had turned in fairly early on and left House sitting on a chair, watching the snow as it fell and, he supposes, trying to get some kind of handle on this whole thing. He had been expecting House to still be there this morning and was surprised to find himself alone on the second day, the day everything would begin in earnest.

He knows lots of useful things about arranging a 'tidy' death; about DNRs, Living Wills, power of attorney and even has a list of all the best lawyers who dealt with that kind of stuff. The trouble being, Blythe hadn't expected to die.

As he closes the first of the desk's drawers, he hears the unmistakable thump-step of House walking across the landing above. The feint but audible splash of early morning pee and the subsequent flush of the toilet coincide with Wilson opening the second of the drawers. He moves a pile of photographs to reveal a document wallet with 'In the event of my death' written across it in thick, black marker pen. The smile across his face shows the relief he feels at having something tangible with which to begin.

Wilson leaves the contents of the folder for House to discover before heading into the kitchen to make toast and coffee. The freezing morning, despite the heat blasting from the radiators, forces the air he exhales to turn into hot puffs of vapour as he walks, as he breathes.

Lost in the minutia of morning routine, he jumps when House clears his throat in the doorway.

"I didn't hear you come down." He places his hand over his heart as some sort of indicator of shock, "I was just making some breakfast – want some coffee? Toast? Anything?"

"I might," House clears the roughness from his throat before he continues. "Might have a coffee."

He grabs the cup that Wilson had just been about to drink and limps heavily to the French doors leading out into the little garden. Wilson stands with his hand loosely formed around the now-invisible cup before he lets his arm drop to his side.

"Here, have mine by all means."

Making another drink for himself takes no time and as he swirls the spoon around, the milk he added forces the dark coffee to blend into a more palatable mocha colour. He can hear House blowing into the stolen mug and the slurp he makes resonates around the room, somehow out of place in the peace of the morning.

"So, I uh, found something in your mother's desk." Wilson stops himself throwing his hands up to protect his face for fear that House may respond to this with violence. Cautiously, he passes the folder. "I uh, think this might help you to you know, get started."

Wilson watches as House checks out the folder, opening it slowly as though it might be booby-trapped in some way.

"Right. Okay." House mumbles as peers inside, "its uh… there's nothing inside. Just this list."

Wilson takes the crisp, white sheet of notepaper and reads through all the things that should be in the folder, and aren't.

"I guess she was getting to it. You know after your dad."

"Right." House slurps again at his mug, and Wilson isn't sure what to say or do next.

Thankfully, the sound of Blythe's doorbell jangling in the hallway relieves him of his burden and he hurries off to answer the door.

Somehow, Wilson expects to recognize the person on the other side of the door and is actually surprised to find himself face to face with a perfectly pleasant, but totally unknown woman.

"Hi… uh…"

"Well now, you're not Greg, I can see that, you must be..?" At once welcoming and completely disarming, Wilson cannot help but be grateful to this woman he does not know, for pulling him from the mire of House's grief.

"I'm James, James Wilson… I uh, work with… Greg. Please come in." He gestures frantically into the narrow hallway with an ineffectual flap of his hand, trying to stem the dreadful icy blasts of wind leaking into the house.

"So, before you let me in, you should know who I am huh?!" the strange lady stomps the snow from her boots and her cheeks instantly flush red when she steps into the hall.

"Oh, well, I uh…"

"Oh honey, don't you worry! I'm Mary. I'm a friend of Blythe's. I met Greg once, a few years back." She pauses, expression turning dour and stops Wilson with a hand to his elbow, "How is he doing?"

Wilson isn't sure how to answer the question without making his friend sound a heartless man at worst and a needy one at best.

"He uh, I guess it's all been quite a shock. He uh, isn't saying very much right now. I'm uh, sorry for your loss." She nods her appreciation, and he leads Mary down the hall into the living room. When he takes her coat, he invites her to sit down.

"HOUSE? HOUSE?" he shouts. "Let me go look for him, I'll be right back." Wilson leaves Mary sitting on the sofa and heads into the kitchen to try to locate the man in question.

The coffee cups they had both been drinking from perch precariously on the edge of the worktop, splodges of syrupy brown liquid oozing over the edges. Other than that, there is no sign of life in the empty room. There aren't many ways that a man with a limp and a cane can get by Wilson without setting off myriad internal alarms so this turn of events is somewhat disconcerting. The kitchen is joined to the rest of the house by the hallway he had just gone through so that left just one means of escape, the French doors.

"He made a break for it huh?!" Mary interrupts Wilson's investigation and flips the kettle on like she's done it a thousand times. A prickle of self-righteousness scuttles down his back before he realises she probably has done it a thousand times, albeit in happier circumstances.

"I don't know him very well but I did know Blythe. If her boy is anything like her, then it may be better to just leave him be. He'll come right."

"I guess."

Wilson suppresses a million 'ifs' and 'buts' and a modicum of disbelief. If he's honest though, he probably thinks much worse of House than he ought to, especially now.

Mary and Wilson watch the hunched figure pacing out in the yard, puffs of breath punctuating his jerking, jolting movements. In the background, the kettle hisses and clicks through its boiling cycle and the glass of the cupboards mists up, forging a visual connection to the atmosphere; both inside and out.

"He needs to figure this out James, it's not every day your mother dies. Give him some space, some time. I have no doubt the relatives are about to descend on you. Be the buffer; let him do what's right. He knows what he's got to do." Mary settles her hand on his before continuing, "Be his friend James, he needs someone in his corner. I'll call later on, but if there's anything you need, my number is on the pin board there. Anything you need, you just call, do you hear?"

Wilson swallows down the knot of emotion threatening to burst out of his mouth and nods, mouth set firmly despite the tell-tale tremble of his lip.

As the front door closes with a resolutely sure click, his eyes don't leave the distant figure of House ambling around in the freezing snow outside. His mind flicks to his own mother; most likely settling down right now to a mid-morning scan of the newspapers and a piping hot chocolate. If she wasn't there, if he didn't have that safety net of just knowing she was a phone-call away…

He blinks his eyes furiously trying to suppress the prickle of tears as he pushes the pre-set button on his phone. It rings out a few times before he makes himself known with a wobble in his voice, "Hi Mom?"

The tinny sound of a mother glad to hear from her middle son pierces the cold air of the kitchen and Wilson melts into the sound of her voice as she brings him up to speed. He leans into the radiator and sucks her strength, her support though the airwaves.

House sitting on the frosty, snow-laden bench-set outside drops his head and Wilson turns away; lets him have this moment.

_A little bit of thanks goes to Paolo Nutini for help with one of the lines. More thanks goes to Iyimgrace for being an all round, good egg._


	5. Chapter 5

'**The Irrelevant Bug', Chapter 5**

The thing is, House had never really been one to act, to _make that change,_ to quote a certain King of Pop. If he had been then his mother wouldn't have spent the last week of her life leaving messages on House's machine. She wouldn't have felt the need to call to see if _he_ was okay when really she wasn't very okay at all.

He rummages through his mother's filing cabinet looking for some sort of clue as to what he is supposed to do now. He has no idea whether or not she wanted to be buried or cremated and feels just a little bit weird that he hadn't needed to make any kind of decision like that for his father. It had all paid off. Those years of asking for his mother straight away when he phoned home, of visiting maybe once, maybe twice since the whole leg thing had erased him slowly from his father's orbit. Did that make him happy? He didn't want to go there; better to stick to the idea of guilt as irrelevant.

Giving up on the banality of his task, he trudges back through to what had been her bedroom and sits down upon the little stool beside her dressing table. He remembers back to all the times he had watched her getting ready for a night out when he was a kid. She would look intently into the mirror and he would lay flat on his belly across his parents' bed. He would watch her reflection dusting a big round brush full of red powder across her cheeks, and watch it pull that weird face blinking again and again as she painted her eyelashes with mascara. All the time he was doing this, he would keep half an eye on his own reflection, trying to catch it out. She would always finish off with a big squirt of perfume that House tasted in his mouth; bitter, poisonous, acid-like.

Somehow, she was always perfect to him, she always smelled just right and he would tell her, "I love you Mommy," and she would smile at him and tousle his head, "I love you too, Sweety". When his world worked by saying, "When I'm five, I'll be a big boy,". Now he thinks, what a small number to think of as so big.

When he was a kid, loving his mother was the benchmark from which everything else was experienced. He thought about what that love meant as an adult, how it manifested. Was it enough to say that yes, he had, or did? Couldn't he have acted on his own adage of doing things changes things? He hadn't of course. He had stayed the same old Greg House who thought of no one and nothing above and beyond his own needs until they were inches close to death; then he 'cared' in so much as he wanted to solve the puzzle, force messy lives into the narrow parameters that existed for him.

He did love her. She was his mother, the woman who had dragged him up to become the man he was today; laughable really. Despite everything he had put himself through, somewhere in the back of his mind, she had existed, remained a constant.

Somewhere in this mist of thought, Wilson enters the room and sits down next to House,

"So what now? What would she have wanted?"

"What would she have wanted bears no relation to the facts as they stand," his voice sounds monotone, flat – even to him.

Wilson stares at the carpet not wanting to go six rounds against House, _Knower of Death_, "What do you mean?" he asks despite himself.

"What would she care now? She's dead, lying on a morgue table in some funeral home. Game over."

"House, she was your _mother_. How can you just relegate her to the past? "

"So that's your argument? That all this belies any kind of truth that may or may not have existed? That a pretty casket made from the spit of butterflies and lined with woven strands of baby hair will make her come back?"

"No, of course not."

"Because she is dead. You can't come back from that."

"You did."

"No I didn't." he stands, wants to leave the room and Wilson, far behind. There is a hard nut of agony in his chest, and he wonders briefly whether he's having a heart attack.

"Look," Wilson breaks his reverie. "This hurts. I know it does. You've lost your mother. That means something House. Not something scientific, concrete or even knowable _a priori_. It hurts, it sucks but to pretend like it doesn't matter somehow, to you, the mighty Greg House, is just… ludicrous."

"Yet, the fact remains. My mother is no more. No amount of lame platitudes printed on sympathy cards is going to make time spin backward or make me… it doesn't matter."

"House?"

"I said it doesn't matter, can we just drop this now? I have to go to the funeral home." He hovers in the doorway half way, expecting Wilson to dole out some more psychological nonsense and then shuffles off down the stairs to leave.

He can't remember where he left his coat, his hat or the keys to his car. He roots through the boxes he has already started to fill in the living room and still can't find any of the things he needs. An unfamiliar prickle of panic starts to tingle across his back and he thinks he may be worried about making it to the funeral home on time.

A trail of misplaced items marks his progress into the kitchen and finds House rifling through drawers with one arm stuffed in the sleeve of his coat and the other reaching under a pile of papers certain he can hear the jangle of his car keys.

"What are you doing?"

"Dammit Wilson, what does it look like?"

"Well… let's see. It _looks_ like you should've been at the funeral home twenty minutes ago and that you aren't ready to leave yet. But then, I have been wrong before."

House doesn't answer. The look he throws at Wilson before he leaves is filled with unsaid words, words Wilson suspects House doesn't even have the muscle memory to be able to pronounce properly.

Wilson bellows some sort of inane after-thought, swimming in guilt, and is met with the sound of the door closing. One door closes and all that...


	6. Chapter 6

**The Irrelevant Bug, Chapter 6**

House swipes at the windshield trying to clear the ice building up so he can see where he is. The car is parked half on and half off the sidewalk and he sits, listening to the crackle of white noise he hasn't tuned the stereo to. The map in his lap is next to no use. The page he thinks he needs has been torn out and crunched up, he supposes his mother had stopped needing it some years back. He can just make out the name of the street he is on and then spots an open bar flashing its neon seductively.

Deciding that a shot of Makers is always worth the effort and banking on the fact that the funny little guy at the funeral home has probably started the icy walk home already, he makes for the bar; limping slowly, cautiously; if he had ever felt more conspicuously 'cripplish', then he couldn't pin it down.

Making it the bar without mishap, he pushes open the steamed up glass door and heads inside. He sits on a high stool at the bar and places his order; with an extra beer on the side. While he waits, he rubs the beer mat and trails it through the puddle of unidentified liquid pooling by the pumps watching it wear away, dissolve into its constituent parts.

When his drinks arrive under his nose, he jumps, surprised that he hadn't noticed any time lapsing. He knocks back the Makers, feeling the burn slide down his throat and warm him from the inside, nodding his thanks to the bartender. The beer cuts through the slick of the whiskey as he sips it, a little too fast, and traces the patterns of condensation as they form on his glass. On the far side of the room, the tinny tsk, tsk, tsk of some drum track niggles deep inside his ear like mosquito readying to bite. All this minutia, the regular lives of the bar's crowded patronage, and the fact that this is completely unexpected, provides a welcome relief form Wilson's constant 'caring', and this brings a small smile to his lips.

"Hey there sailor, how you doing?" A well-dressed woman puts her hand on his shoulder as she slides into the stool beside him.

House smiles again, this time, for the cliché that oozes off this whole experience, and for what he knows is heading his way.

He plays along, "Hey yourself, Brandy."

"Oh, I love that song! You new in town?"

Something makes House see this out and he doesn't need much convincing after the fourth pair of drinks to follow 'Brandy' back to her apartment.

The sex goes well, for a random encounter, he doesn't tip his load before she shouts through her orgasm and he's pretty sure the whole thing had lasted a very respectable amount of time.

When she snuggles into the crook of his arm, warm, sated, sleepy, he remembers himself. He shrugs her off and sits on the edge of the bed searching for his boxers. He spots them across the room and then realises his cane is somewhere out in the living room. If he wants to leave, he's going to have to be nice to her.

"Say, uh, Brandy?"

"No… sleepy…" she drawls.

"Hear that? Someone's at your door, sounds pretty urgent." If he can get her out of the room, then at least he can get his shorts and pants on. He's done a pretty good job of acting uncrippled. He thinks she may have been just the right side of wasted not to notice the limp, clock the cane or notice the leg when the time had come.

"Go'way… sleepy…"

When she turns over and pulls the comforter tight under her chin, he risks the heavy limp to get his pants, and his cane. Nakedness of the clothes-less variety doesn't really bother him, as such. It's just that the nakedness his leg brings, belies the veneer he works hard to project, hides the ugliness of it.

The first step he takes, rocks his perception of pain. He hasn't had any pills since last night in the bar and the hangover squeezing his brain is one of those body-wide jobs shooting little tendrils of shitiness spiralling through his nervous system. Needless to say, it takes him more time than he would like to stagger over to his boxers, leaning down on the bed until he has to go it alone.

Once he has dragged his pants up and he feels less exposed, he starts the hunt for his t-shirt and sweater. This woman is something more than untidy and he begins to think he'll be lucky not to catch some hideous bacterial strain of salmonella from the rotting plate of food on the dresser.

Everywhere he looks there is stuff of the infinitely useless variety. Wondering through the living room results in the absolute knowledge that this woman, whatever her name is, is about a month away from in-patient sex addiction treatment. The dress she had been wearing, the shoes, the make-up; all of that had been designed to hook some guy in, get him back here. She'd certainly played him last night. The nuances of the one night stand are a little distant to him admittedly, but he is pretty sure her overwhelming performance, the clawing and the tears he had pretended not to hear when it was all over, were not what one would normally expect.

Thankful for the not-so-little friend he always keeps in his wallet and happy to be just a stain on her sheets, he closes the door, quietly. He doesn't want her to know he is leaving, doesn't want anything to do with her now she has served her purpose, and he has served his, he supposes.

Standing on the sidewalk, he draws his coat tighter around him and hunts in his pockets for his cell phone. As his breath hits the air, he remembers the guilty pleasure of lighting up; something that has crossed his mind more than once in the last few days. While he ponders on the small matter of how to get back to his Mom's house, he paces; four steps left, four steps right and taps at the numbers on his phone.

"Hey."

"Is that you?"

"No, it's Mad Max and his tribe of barbarians. What do you think?"

"Are you alright? Where are you?"

"What are you, my mot-

"House."

"Wilson."

"Where are you?"

"I don't know exactly."

"Where is your car?"

"That I also don't know exactly."

"I'm not going to ask."

"That's probably a good idea."

"Are you coming back?"

"No, thought I'd just leave you there and head off on that European tour we always talked about, do you mind?"

"House."

"Wilson. Anyway, I'm just... I'm okay."

"Okay. I was worried."

"See you later then. When I get back."

"Good luck Captain Scott. Don't talk to any locals and don't look them in the eye."

"Bit late for that."

"Oh, I see… well, later then."

House clicks off and decides on a direction to take. He has to admit, this is definitely up there with stupid cripple errors 101. There is no way of knowing how far away he is from a store, a café, some place where he will be able to work out where the hell he is. There was one Vicodin pill buried deep in his pocket but he has already snaffled that. So, there is nothing for it. He puts one foot, and the cane, in front of the other and repeats… and repeats.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Irrelevant Bug, Chapter 7**

When House didn't make it home after the phone-call, Wilson had started to worry.

When he wakes up the next morning, and House still isn't home, he worries even more. Feeling entirely useless, lost in a strange town, and car-less, Wilson rationalizes that House is, despite evidence to the contrary, a grown-up. There's obviously some stuff he needs to work through and Wilson knows better than to try to get in his way.

Stirring what feels like the fiftieth cup of coffee he has made since their arrival, Wilson places the mug next to a second round of drinks. As he carries the tray through to the living room, he runs through the introductions that have been made, desperately trying to remember a list of strange names.

Wilson feels completely out of his depth. Usually, he has the necessary social skills and professional gravitas to cope in any given circumstance, but right now, he doesn't mind admitting that the full weight of expectation of House's Aunt and Uncle, a policeman, the funeral guy and Blythe's friend, is a bit too much.

"Here we are," he says as he hands around the drinks, "I really don't know where he's got to. I'm sure he'll be back soon."

A mumble of disbelief sounds round the room and Wilson realizes that for these people, actions speak louder than words; House's largely consisting of absence. That he should be entrusted with the responsibility of his mother's funeral doesn't sit easy with this crowd given the appalling lack of arrangement so far.

Thankfully, Mary seems to be on his side and rescues him from a wall of stony faces.

"So, James, how about I organize the flowers? Maybe that would get the ball rolling"

"Oh, that would be great. I uh, don't think Greg actually gets on very well with flowers." It sounds lame as it leaves his lips but once he has started, it doesn't seem right to stop.

"We've informed the rest of the family anyway. We just need to finalise the arrangements. Has Greg decided on when..?" House's Aunt Sarah asks.

Wilson doesn't know how to say diplomatically that House has been missing for two days and he suspects, has been busier with a bottle of liquor than making any kind of progress with his mother's funeral. He mumbles some kind of hedging nonsense and drops his head, embarrassed.

House's Aunt fills the silence left hanging in the air and turns to the policeman, "Do we know what actually happened yet?"

"I'm not at liberty to say at this time. Until I have spoken to Dr House-" the self-righteous, meaningless words feel like a slap to Wilson's face and he winces in response; something is very, very wrong with this whole thing.

"Surely you can tell us something?!" House's Uncle cuts him off, earning a good hard stare in the process.

"Until I have spoken to Dr House, her next of kin, I can't tell you anymore than we already know. Mrs House ran out into the road and was knocked down by a metallic blue SUV travelling at twice the speed limit."

Hearing the plain facts repeated back like that makes Wilson feel like this is all happening to someone else's family. He's seen this type of thing on TV, he's delivered bad news to thousands of people but when it hits so close to home, it just doesn't seem right.

"But you're here because you do know something more?" Wilson can't leave it alone.

"Sir, until I have spoken to Dr House, I am not at liberty to say."

By the use of his professional title, Wilson can tell that the policeman is expecting some kind golf playing, Ralph Lauren man in general practice to come and deal with this whole thing, take the weight manfully.

This then is _the_ exact best time for House himself to come stumbling though the front door, swearing, twelve kinds of disheveled and stinking, so rendering any explanation for his disappearance completely unnecessary.

"Hi honey I'm home!" he slurs jubilantly as an icy gust of wind follows him.

Wilson doesn't need to hear any more to know that House is drunk. Rushing into the hall, he grabs at House's arm and squeezes probably a little too hard.

"What do you think you're doing?" he hisses, "Where the hell have you been? I've been worried, not to mention-"

"Woah there skipper! Relax, had me a little drink issall, one for the road as they say- whassa matta?"

"Your aunt and uncle are here, your mother's friend is here, a _police officer_ is here, the _funeral guy_ is here – want me to go on?!"

"S'okay, I'll just go on in and-"

"You will go nowhere except for upstairs until you're sober again." Wilson interrupts and points House in the direction he wants him to go in. "What happened to your face? Where's your cane?"

House paws at his cheek, shrugs his shoulders and hauls himself up the stairs, painfully. He seems to be moving quicker than should be physically possible making Wilson quirk an eyebrow in contemplation.

When Wilson reaches the front room to make some sort of excuse, he hears the reason for it.

House pukes his guts out and the assembled visitors can hear each and every sorry groan and wretch.

"Right… think I'll just go and take up some water."

House's Aunt steps up to the plate. 'Honey, you have enough on your hands here, why don't we come back later on, say around six?" she silently questions the assorted faces in the room, then checks back to Wilson. "Why don't I just stay here and give you a hand huh? Looks like you're going to need it."

"That sounds good, thanks." As he speaks, the visitors stand, readying to leave. They troop past him one by one and he suffers several sympathetic pats on his shoulder. He rushes them out through the front door accompanied by the sound of House's never ending retching in the bathroom upstairs. "So, sorry this didn't quite go to plan. Glad to have met you, see you later on."

Wilson turns to Sarah with a wild look in his eye. He really doesn't know what to do. Sure, he's seen House drunker than this before but Wilson has always had some sort of control of the situation; be it geographic or moral. Right now, he feels like a salmon; hopelessly flapping against the strength of the tides crashing against him.

"Let me go up James?"

There is such a kindness in her voice that Wilson can't help but be drawn into her comfort. For all of House's prickles, it seems there have been women in his life letting him lean on their softer edges. Wilson knows or knew - it was never easy to work with the tenses when death was so recent - that Blythe had been something of a rare species; not many people would have put up with both House senior and junior.

He starts to clear the cups and plates from the living room, knowing that if he sits still for too long, all of this will come crashing down around his ears. He cringes each time he hears House release a fresh wave of poison into the toilet bowl and longs to hear exactly what Sarah is saying. All he can make out is the pitch and tone of her voice muffled through walls and floorboards, striking hammer-like against the retching and groaning of a man in distress.

As usual, House had done his best to make sure any possible sympathetic overtures are washed away by asinine, teenage posturing. As usual, Wilson knows that this factor alone is the expression of the inexpressible; Samson's hair left like a razed field in September, Icarus' wings a pool of wax in the sun.

House is down, and he has no idea how to bring him back to life.

_Gosh, sorry! I made a huge error because I went and tried to fly without my trusty beta. Note to self, never rely on own mind… it doesn't work. Iyim, you are a true marvel. _


	8. Chapter 8

The Irrelevant Bug, Chapter 8

When House dares to crack an eye open, he does so ever so cautiously. There's a fine layer of gritty crust his eyelid must first break through and then there's the insanely bright sun of a freezing winter morning to contend with.

The very second he does let his eyes assess his surroundings, a veritable cacophony of drums pounds through each and every blood vessel in his brain. He feels each valve in his circulatory system as it first opens, and then closes behind a gush of hot, toxic blood.

He has no idea of what time, or even what day it might be. For all he knows, he has missed his own mother's funeral like the crazed subject of some ridiculous moral guilt-trip.

Beneath the veneer of Budweiser and Maker's, he is numb. Precisely the desired outcome of whatever it was that happened last night. There's a vague memory of a high speed ride home from some guy heading in whatever direction House had been pointing, coupled with a suspicious feeling that he'd been mugged at some point, potentially by the guy in the car, potentially by the two guys waiting outside the liquor store. Either way, he can't feel his wallet in its usual place, and unless Wilson has hidden his cane for his own safety, he can't locate that either.

Sitting now, the rushing and pounding of blood centres on the area around his eye and on the edge of his jaw. Knowing that these are not among the more commonplace markers of the hangover, he can only conclude that he had indeed been in a whole heap of trouble. It's probably a damn good thing that he can't remember much beyond his early morning phone call to Wilson – had that been yesterday? Last week? Last year?

Focusing on his jaw and assessing his condition, House peels his tongue from the roof of his mouth and can only thank the laws of human physiology that prevent him from smelling his own breath. Dehydration had seen off the last of his saliva and the sand paper left behind hurts like a bitch as he tries to run his tongue over his cracked lips.

He reeks; he feels like he is secreting 99% proof sweat with a neat after-note of tramp.

There isn't a sound in the house except for the accompanying grunts and groans every time House moves an abused limb. He wouldn't actually be surprised if Wilson hasn't given up on this whole sorry-ass thing and headed back to Princeton.

When he stands up, his mom's room spins like a firework providing an intriguing contrast to the swell of drummers now really going for it deep inside his brain. A very small part of him actually takes pride in the fact that he's so out of it in here. That he is drunk in such a sainted location speaks to his teenage self and commends his audacity.

Clinging to the wall all the way out of the bedroom and down the hall, he makes it to the bathroom and delivers a paltry amount of urine, the colour of which should alarm his inner nephrologist. Just to complete the whole goods in, goods out process, he also pukes up what must be pure red wine his liver hasn't even bothered to try to filter. He supposes this is the reason his brain feels like it's being squeezed tight in a vice.

His body shakes and shivers as he peels yesterday's - two days ago's - clothes off. He wobbles into the shower stall, pausing to lift his leg over the ledge of the tub and steps under the steaming hot water.

As it pounds his body stripping away layers of dirt, sweat and guilt, House feels a new resolve sweep over him. He knows he's one of those guys who has to get so low, to come this close to disaster before he can even begin to figure his way out of whatever hole he's dug for himself.

The bathroom fills with the scent of apples as he uses the last of his mother's shampoo to wash his hair and his body. He thinks about the morning she died, a woman of strict routine brought about by her marriage to his father, had she anticipated her death? A vague memory from arriving back here this morning, last night, whenever it was, has him colliding with a police officer on his way out. Was there something else to this?

It feels fitting that the full stop at the end of his mother's life should have some explanation other than 'crappy accident'. People should know that his mother, _shouldn't _have died. That all of this jarred so heavily against his mantra of life and death makes his head spin and he swears he can hear her calling out his name as though he's going to be late for school or late for dinner; late for something anyhow.

His shower is brought to an abrupt end by a horrendous knocking and spluttering travelling through the pipes. A jet of ice-cold water sends shards of glass spiking into his exposed flesh and he can't even breathe for the shock.

Gasping, he levers his leg, numb and frozen out of the tub and reaches for a towel from the stack neatly arranged on the shelf. He rubs roughly at his skin fighting against the goose bumps breaking out across his body. He ties the towel tightly around his waist, and braces himself against the cold air he knows is waiting for him outside the bathroom.

Standing in the doorway, he takes a minute or twelve to wait for his leg to catch up with the command to walk. When it does, his movements are jerky, like a marionette with a novice puppeteer. His doesn't seem to have any control over his knee and it jerks up like someone is pulling on a string.

He is about to laugh at how ridiculous he must look when he hears Wilson shouting up the stairs. He had been quite comfortable trapped inside his own head, with his own guilt. He doesn't much feel like an inquisition or being the recipient of another lecture on responsibility, but he knows he probably deserves it according to the 'rules of friendship' he's not sure he understands any more.

"Do you know how the boiler works? The pilot's out, heating, water… all out. House? House?"

Actually, House hadn't expected this.

"Huh?"

"I said, the boiler is broken. No heat, no hot water."

"Oh, right. I uh…" House feels useless, the snarky put-down he's prepared rendered harmless in the face of this minor domestic disaster.

"Forget it. I'll call someone."

House can hear Wilson stomping back through to the kitchen and then stabbing at the phone. He stands still on the landing, shivering and not registering that fact until a dribble of water from his hair rolls down his back. He goes back to his mother's room and sees it afresh as though for the first time.

Her nightdress is still laid out on the chair by the window, neat, tidy, ready.

He dresses himself as quickly as he can trying to avoid the maudlin thoughts threatening to take over.

He has to fix this whole mess. His mother deserves that.

He heaves his jeans up over his boxers and hisses at the spikes of electricity jangling through the shattered nerves in what used to be his thigh muscle.

Pulling his sweater over his head, he automatically reaches for his cane forgetting it has disappeared somewhere along with a good percentage of his brain cells. Instead, he makes his way down stairs gripping onto his thigh and is met by Wilson in the hallway.

"Woah! That came up a treat. You ready to tell yet?!"

House fingers his jaw and the tender skin around his eye, "You should see the other guy."

"You have to stop pretending that this doesn't matter."

Wilson's instruction forces the belligerent child trapped in House's very centre to rear up and fight against a perceived injustice. "Nothing changes… Wilson. You and I are still irrelevant bugs on the universe's windshield. The world still spins; a woman dies and somewhere, a baby is born. That's the way it goes."

"Right, so all the drinking all the… Jesus House! I'm though with this. You _have_ to deal with this. There isn't anybody else. You are the last one left. You owe it to your mom to do this right. It comes down to respect."

House can't stop himself, he has to reply despite the fact that this whole conversation is null and void. "What I say and do now has nothing to do with respect. Respect only matters when the recipient is around to see it. Some arcane and ancient ritual designed to make some people think they're honouring the dead doesn't mean anything."

"To you maybe. But this is about more than just Gregory House. Your mom had a life outside of you. She had friends, relatives," Wilson throws Blythe's wall calendar in House's face, trying to make his point. "Look! Every day is filled in with some kind of event. That you of all people refuses to see how much she mattered to other people is-"

"I know."

"What?!"

"I said, I know. I'm going now to the funeral place."

"You..?" House can see that Wilson had many more variations of 'stop being an ass' to get through. He can almost see his head spinning. "What?!"

"Just… I'll be back later."

When he pulls the front door closed, it is with the resolve of a man with a puzzle to solve, a mother to bury and Wilson's wallet in his pocket.

After edging cautiously down the driveway leading away from his mother's house, his resolve alters to include a trip to the nearest cripple store he can find. Cripple is, as cripple does after all.


	9. Chapter 9

The Irrelevant Bug, Chapter 9

Walking in through the heavy door of the funeral home, House stomps about trying to make the feeling come back into his toes. He leaves a trail of snow melting behind him as he makes his way to the front desk and dings the bell. The funeral home is gloomy, dark and House supposes this is some kind of attempt to comfort the grief-stricken.

While he waits for the strange little man to turn up, he blows into his gloved hands trying to restore the circulation. As the flame-hot tingling sensation nips at his extremities, he hears a peculiar shuffling noise make its way up the hallway.

The little man draws nearer and House feels like he's being set up. The gloomy hallways, the shuffling, little man with a particularly acute case of Scoliosis, all add up to some bad horror novel and force the tremor at the corner of his mouth to lift into a sneer.

Extending a hand forward, the little man greets House, "Dr House, I presume?"

Ignoring the proffered hand, he manages through some huge effort, not to snap back with the words he _really_ wants to use.

"Yes."

"I am sorry for your loss, we here at Day's Lawns Funeral Home want to extend the warm hand of kindness at this time."

House wonders if the guy knows what he actually means, and tries to formulate a response based on some sort of understanding.

"So…" He wants to turn around and walk back out of the door.

"Would you like to see your mother?" the funeral guy's weirdly deep voice growls through the well rehearsed script.

"I… uh…" He hadn't expected this.

"Most people find seeing their loved one at rest…"

House tunes out and feels the walls begin to close in on him. He nods tightly, and feels ridiculous as he limps after the humped man and can only focus on the physiology of the guy's spine.

If he lets himself think about what awaits him, he's not sure his hung-over body will keep him upright.

The strange pair walk deeper and deeper into the bowels of the deceptively small funeral home and the wallpaper on the walls turns from tastefully patterned to brick tile. Sterile, clean, functional, House supposes.

He's seen a million cadavers, dissected just as many of them and caused more than one life to end before _its_ time, in _his _time. This though, this is his mother. Her chest cavity won't rise and fall with her breath. Her face won't crease into the smile he knows deep down is just for him. She won't get up and walk out of the room, take him for lunch, talk his ear off, _love_ him.

The humped man pauses dramatically next to a gurney.

"Doctor House? Are you ready to go on?"

"Yes." He thinks, thinks, _thinks._

"Your mother is over here. I must warn you, the cause of her passing has left a large bruise covering the left side of her face." He pauses again and lets his words sink in, lets the grieving son absorb the information. "When you're ready Doctor House." He gestures toward another gurney and House knows his mother is under there.

When he was small and his father had been away 'in country', he had hidden under the sheets as his mother changed the bed. He had loved the billowing of the cool cotton over his head and the feel of the sheet as it draped over his little body. Sometimes, she would hoist the sheet up high over her head and duck underneath it next to him, and they would wait for it to fall gently over them. They would giggle and the wait would seem like an eternity, eyes locked onto each other's. Within seconds, their world would become just the two of them, hidden from the outside, calm, serene, happy and he felt like he would melt into her smile, drown in the warmth of her eyes.

House can make out the point of her nose and the jut of her chin, and can see the edge of her bare foot poking out from under the sheet where she lies alone, silent, dead.

The little man edges nearer to the wall as if to blend into the background, unnoticed and professionally somber.

House limps heavily toward the gurney, terrified at the thought of pulling the sheet back.

His hand brushes along the cold, metal edge and his fingers flirt with the corner of the sheet resting over his mother's face.

Without further thought, he pulls the sheet away, like he is ripping off a band-aid; fast and painful.

His eyes immediately fall on the ugly deep-purple contusion striking down from her left temple to her jaw. His own bruised jaw throbs sympathetically and his hand hovers over her skin, afraid of what he will feel.

Her eyes are closed, no trace of the pain or fear she must have felt in her last moments. She doesn't look like his mother. Her bleached skin, clammy and swollen isn't the skin he knew. She has no make-up on and he doesn't think he can ever remember her having looked this… bare, this… empty.

He can't help but examine her like she is just another cadaver in some autopsy, looking for some sort of clue as to why she ran out into the road. He glances quickly across her face, down over her neck and notes the ugly indentation where her shoulder ought to be.

"You shouldn't do that Doctor House."

He turns, startled, "Oh…"

"We were awaiting instruction, we haven't prepared her body for viewing."

House knows there must be a thousand other injuries lying hidden beneath the sheet and his mind runs through a checklist of potential sudden impact injuries.

"I'm a doctor."

"She was your mother."

He doesn't like that his mother is so vulnerable here, alone, naked, and then shakes himself for feeling that way. His mother is dead. What remains is just an empty space.

He draws the sheet back over her face and wants desperately to see the beginnings of a smile lighting up her face, like this is all some horrible joke.

She doesn't move or flinch and he turns, knowing that he will never see her again. There won't be a public viewing, no façade of appearance, no spectacle. She should just… this should just end.

"This way sir."

The bizarre parade of deformity makes its way back to the front of house where grief is laid out in catalogues of caskets and flower arrangements. House wants to shake the little man and shout that none of this is right. His mother is dead and he doesn't know what he is supposed to do about that.

He sits in an uncomfortable chair and chooses a plain, wooden casket lined with something he doesn't really care about. He hears Wilson nagging at him about respect and honestly thinks that none of this charade comes anywhere near what respect is.

When he steps out into the dying light of the day, the snow is falling more heavily and he isn't sure of even whether it is morning or afternoon. The funeral is arranged and paid for, and it will happen on the following Tuesday, a week after she died.

Death by formality and mail order; commercial sympathy doled out with the right flowers; and that doesn't feel like respect.

Shuffling back to his car, his footsteps are wiped out with fresh snow even before he can turn to see.

His mother is dead, and he isn't sure what he is supposed to do about that.


	10. Chapter 10

**The Irrelevant Bug, Chapter 10.**

Wilson peers through a small gap in the curtains each time he hears a car drive near. Behind him, a fire crackles in the grate and House's aunt and Blythe's friend, Mary sit on the sofa making small talk trying not to freeze.

He had called an engineer that morning but the cold snap means that two guys are a low priority when it comes to getting the boiler fixed. Anyway, it kind of suits the icy atmosphere of the unspoken.

Worrying about House is starting to feel like a natural state but it doesn't make the horrendous fluttering in his belly feel any better and it won't make his pulse rate return to anything like normal.

When House had left that morning, Wilson was sure he was still drunk, still way over the limit. Coupled with the snow and the leg, he supposes there ought to be solace in the fact that what would constitute a sure accident for normal people, was the sort of thing that House reveled in on an almost daily basis. Still, he thinks his vigil by the window will count for something at least.

He's been trapped in Blythe's house for days playing no other part in House's grieving process than to make tea and coffee for visitors.

He feels antsy, like bugs are creeping over his skin. He is using every last bit of his reserve to maintain the illusion that he is listening and that he cares; it helps that he spends a large proportion of his working life doing exactly the same thing.

He envies House his freedom and feels sick when he realizes the implications behind that statement.

When the conversation has run out and all three people in the now-stuffy living room are clearly thinking the same thing, the low rumble of House's exhaust pipe splutters up onto the drive.

Silence falls in the room and Wilson can hear his heart beating hard in his chest. He has no idea why he has ascribed so much expectation and weight to House's arrival and thinks, not for the first time, that House can't help but fail to live up to the stifling mass pressing down on him when he enters this house.

There's a jangling of keys and a creak when the front door opens. Unmistakable, lop-sided footfalls make their way up the corridor and House calls out Wilson's name.

"In here, House."

House shouts a reply from the hallway, "It's freezing in here."

When he pushes open the living room door, a brief flash of fear only noticed by Wilson, strikes across his face before he manages to greet his guests.

"Sarah, hi." House then turns to face Mary, and Wilson can see him try to work out whether he is supposed to know who she is. "I don't uh…"

"My name is Mary, honey. I was as good friend of your Mom's. I was here the other day…"

"Oh, right. Good."

Wilson can feel the tiredness seeping out of House and feels really, really bad that he can't just make all this go away. If he could click his fingers and House's aunt and Blythe's friend would disappear, then maybe House would feel just a little bit better.

The room is silent for a little too long and Wilson is grateful when he hears Mary take in a deep breath, ready for some sort of revelation, or something, he hopes.

"Actually honey, I met you some time back when you visited your folks in their last place."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, your mom and I were going to an exhibition… I don't remember what it was now…"

Wilson watches House drop his head and rub his hand across his forehead.

"Greg, what is it?" House's aunt rushes to his side and Wilson stands silently in the corner watching whatever this is play itself out.

Wilson can't bring himself to interfere. Despite all the interfering he's done, the meddling right in the heart of House's life, this seems just too raw and intangible for him to deal with; not after Amber.

House gets up quickly from the sofa and he looks to Wilson as though he's about to drop.

"I don't want to do this now."

House limps past and Wilson feels the cold shiver of his wake make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

"Greg, wait… honey-" House's aunt stands and looks like she's about to go after him.

"No, it's not time yet."

"What do you mean, James?"

"Now is not the time for talking. That's not his way." With that, Wilson feels like he suddenly, _really _knows House. The epiphany brings with it a huge sense of calm and Wilson feels all the crazy planets orbiting around in his head, fall into place, just where they should be. He knows House will, and is, dealing with this in his own, unique way. Just as he knows that Amber has been laid to rest; it's his own peace that needs to be restored.

As so often in their friendship, House has forced Wilson through some sort of insane process he didn't know he needed to be a part of. House the healer; House the bereaved. This was all going to hit him and very soon, and Wilson knows he is just going to let it be. House knows what he needs to do.


	11. Chapter 11

The Irrelevant Bug, Chapter 11

Blinding headlights growing larger by the second head straight at House and he stands, frozen in the middle of the road. He can hear the screech of breaks and smell the tyres burning but his feet won't move. His eyes are glued to the lights as the rest of the car morphs into shape around them. The driver's face is riddled with fear, or perhaps anger; House can't make it out. There is screaming now, and above that, he can make out the driver yelling at him to get the hell out of the way. He stands resolutely rooted to the spot and knows he can't move even if he wanted to. Funny that he should feel so calm.

What seems like an eternity passes before he realises the moment has come. There'll be twisted metal, screeching, ripping as his body gets smashed across the road like a rag-doll. Any second now, the car will slam into his shoulder and break his neck and there is nothing, _nothing_ he can do about it. Any second… any second…

House bolts awake panting, desperate for air. Sweat pours down his face and his heart pounds in his chest. He feels like he may actually be about to stroke out.

He doesn't know where he is and doesn't recognise the room until his breathing starts to slow. The ever-logical scientist in him quickly rationalises, assigning the nightmare to a corner of his mind. Of course, of course. This is to be expected.

He had thought more than most about the minutes and seconds before death. To be so ill that you know you _might_ die - and gladly - is one thing, to have no clue until it's too late is another. When he had lain there dying in a hospital bed all those years ago, he had longed for the relief he was sure death would bring. Nothing else had mattered and Stacy's pleas of '_Hang in there, Greg… I'll get the doctor Greg'_ had long since faded into background noise. He has just one memory of that time beside the latent expression of excruciating pain. The overwhelming panic that gave way to laughter, easily comes to mind. He was so sure he was about to die at any second, he could almost taste the freedom and the peace. When he's honest with himself, it wouldn't be so bad to be back in that place.

He flops back down in the bed and breathes slowly, in and out trying to calm the pounding before his heart breaks free, and force his mind to be in the here and the now.

Once he has tethered himself back to reality and the room has stopped spinning, he sits again. He reaches for the little alarm clock on his mother's nightstand listening to it tick. He moves it as far as he can reach so he can make out what the time is without his glasses.

He remembers this clock from his childhood. Its tick had lulled him off to sleep when he'd been allowed to sleep in his parents' bed, when his father had been away. It taunts him as it did when he was young, ticking regularly and punctually. Tick, tick, tick endlessly through the night.

He is thrown from his reverie by the clock sounding its alarm. The bells can't strike and are dulled by his hand. He stares down at it, listening as it purrs, muffled in his grasp. He makes out the little numbers and is surprised that his mother would set it to wake her so late. He imagined her as one of those people who was up first thing, raring to go. He supposes that once she was free of his father, she was free of the early, military starts. Seems they had more in common than he had thought.

Gently, he turns the clock over in his palm and removes one of the cogs. In an instant, the clock stops ticking, just like that. Easy and fixed forever at 9.45 in the morning.

He doesn't want to think of his mother counting down to her last breath. When she had been hit by the SUV, he would never know if her life had stopped just like the clock's or if there had been a horrible limbo between life and death while she suffered, hurt and scared lying in the middle of the road.

He places the clock in the top drawer of his mother's nightstand and levers himself up, stiffly and painfully. Swallowing down one too many Vicodin against the dryness in his throat, he hobbles down the corridor on the new cane and pauses at the top of the stairs.

Straining his ears against the slight tinnitus he's been developing recently, he can make out Wilson pottering in the kitchen. Good old Wilson and his coffee, meals… money. If Wilson hadn't been here though, he doesn't think he would have eaten anything except bar nuts and chips.

As it stands, he's ravenous now. He sort of feels like something in him has been re-awoken and is living in his belly growling for sustenance.

Cursing his cripplish lack of stealth, he knows Wilson won't be surprised when he turns up in the kitchen so he doesn't bother with any pretence when he grabs the toast and bacon waiting patiently on a plate.

"Have at it. Does it make a difference to you if you know the food _was_ actually intended for you?" Wilson wipes his hands on the flowery apron he is wearing, "Is it nutritionally mandatory that you eat someone else's food? Because, I can pretend… if you like?"

House is glad that Wilson has dared to make a joke. The only people he has seen in the last few days have been concerned with his emotional state, fragile in its grief. He's not too sure if that's preferable to the one night stand with the over-active sex drive.

With a smirk and the salty tang of bacon filling his mouth, House doesn't say anything. He's grateful, and he's sure Wilson knows that.

Wilson grabs his own plate from its hiding place beside the toaster and gestures toward the little table set up in the corner of his mother's kitchen.

"So, what do we need to do today?"

He would have given anything for just a few more minutes shooting the breeze and eating breakfast with Wilson. The abrupt reminder that the funeral is just two days away, actually hurts, deep inside his chest.

He doesn't think there is any more space for this pain. Thinking about tomorrow and the next day and the next day, without the anchor of his mother is… he hadn't called her in weeks. There is so much that she doesn't, didn't know.

He used to tell her everything. She used to know everything about him. He always thought she could read his mind; that if she caught him looking back at her through the rear-view mirror when she was driving, that she would be able to hear his thoughts.

He'd been a crappy son.

"I have to take her clothes over to the funeral home."

"Oh, okay."

"I have to tell the funeral home what music she would want…" House drifts off into his own thoughts. It seems easier than confronting his emotions verbally. If he doesn't say it, it's not happening.

To pretend to know what the right music is to mark the end of his mother's life seems facile, banal.

This alone is awesome in its depth and he knows he isn't worthy.

Leaving his breakfast half-eaten, he gets up form the table and leaves Wilson confused by the sudden silence. He lumbers into his mother's living room and heads for her CD collection hoping to find some note saying '_pick this one Gregory, this is the right choice'_.

When he pushes the power button on her very expensive sound system, the room swells along with the crescendo of a solitary violin.

House is cast back to his days in Japan, wondering under the blossom trees, amazed by the fluffy clots of pink flowers balanced on the end of the branches. Hand clasped tightly in his mother's, they walk through the market place of the town nearest the garrison and he is transfixed by raw, skinned rabbits and ugly, deep-sea fish waiting their fate.

Focused entirely on trying to follow the path of the strings, he sits down and turns the volume up high, he wants to _feel_ this. The familiar refrain has him completely in its clutches and he is given up to the expression of a lark, fluttering high in the sky. The unbearable high notes, accompanied by the woodwind and the warmth of brass have him squeeze his eyes tight shut and she is there with him in that concert hall of some nameless town he can't remember.

'_This is the most beautiful piece of music I know Gregory. Listen… there, to that French Horn.'_

_He had tears coursing down his smooth, little boy face and he felt like his heart was going to explode. Still that lark flew and he felt like he was perched on its wing, willing follower of its journey through the skies._

'_Imagine a little brown bird, that's it. Watch him soar above the roof-tops, fluttering here and there. Now hey, don't cry honey. What is it?'_

The violinist hovers over the final top note of the opening movement and all he can think of is how overwhelmed he feels by this piece of music each time he hears it_. _If he could do away with written definitions for the word, then this piece of music is the very embodiment of beauty.

He's clearly not a man prone to this kind of over-sentimentalism but it feels… _right_. Nothing about this whole thing has felt anywhere near to normal, or had any sense of logic or rationality. He could swear she was standing here in the room with him.

A solitary tear rolls down his face and onto his lip. Tasting the saltiness, he keeps his eyes closed and smiles. He will get through this. Like muscle memory, her warmth, passion, her love will stay with him.

This piece of music is the gift his mother gave to him. It just fits.

_Thanks as always to the lovely Iyimgrace, she's a good'un. _


	12. Chapter 12

**The Irrelevant Bug, Chapter 12**

House, is cold.

He has been sitting on the sofa for who knows how long and it's dark, and it's cold.

Wilson had headed up to his bed hours ago but House can't bring himself to move. A thousand emotions have been churning in his belly and a thousand half finished thoughts fight and jostle for position in his mind.

That no one can tell him why his mother ran out into the road is the one thing he can't get past. Why the universe decided at exactly the only moment in her life when she had done something rash and impetuous - aside from that night fifty years ago - to send a crazy soccer mom speeding toward her, seems cruel and unjust.

When he sees that the dawn is starting to creep across the sky, he takes a handful of Vicodin then waits a few minutes for it to kick in and loosen the frozen clamp holding his leg in place.

When he feels a little freer, he hobbles, hurting with every step, out of the living room. Grabbing his parka from the banister, he heads out of the front door.

The cold dawn demands his silence and who is he to argue? He daren't make a sound. He doesn't want to break the early morning spell of time that belongs to hidden animals creeping around, in a peaceable people-free existence.

Outside, his footsteps leave an imprint in the fresh snowfall and he's freezing despite his heavy winter coat. The cane feels like it may go out from under him at any second and he winces every time he puts it down, testing the firmness of the ground before he lets it take his weight. As he stumbles and hobbles along the sidewalk, he feels like icicles are forming in his nostrils freezing him from the inside out.

When he makes it out to the middle of his mother's noiseless street, he thinks back over the last few days and can recall maybe thirty cars, rammed full of child seats and strollers passing by.

That is all.

It's not the early hour, it's that this is a quiet street, just a few houses and by no means any kind of thoroughfare. She wouldn't have chosen to live anywhere more animated. She liked her solitude, she deserved it.

He digs about in the snow with the tip of his cane hoping to find some kind of clue. Across the street, someone's wall is in pieces scattered across the sidewalk, waiting to be rebuilt once she is only half remembered as _that nice lady down the street._

There's a strip of police tape flickering in the arctic breeze warning morbid passersby of the danger, and House wishes he could see the black scar of burnt rubber that must surely mark the impact site, wishes he could see exactly where it was that his mother was killed.

He doesn't care that his ass is instantly soaked when he sits down heavily on the edge of the curb. He also doesn't care that just out of the corner of his eye, he can see one of his mother's neighbours peering around the edge of her drapes.

Why had she run out like that? There was always an answer. There was always an external reason for any change to the state of inertia; simple physics. He had built his whole career out of the very fact that he could solve the insolvable. This, this has him beat.

Once the shivering starts to actually hurt, House concedes that whatever the truth is, it's not out here.

He's about to hoist himself up like the sail on a rotten old ship but can't help doubt the new cane. It doesn't feel right and he is a firm believer that things, people, have to earn respect. Trust isn't something that just appears in a flash. That's what his father told him anyway.

He can tell the shoes that appear in front of him belong to Wilson, something about the quality of the leather smacks of 'Jewish oncologist'.

"What are you doing out here?"

"I'm not sure… I just thought that something might…" House leaves the thought unfinished, lingering in the glacial air of the dawn.

"It's cold, you should come back in. I made some coffee."

"Why do you think she was out here, when it happened?"

"I don't know House, I really don't."

House can feel the sympathy seep out of Wilson's 'caring' organ, but for once, he kind of welcomes it. "It's driving me crazy. There _has_ to be a reason. _Something_ made her run out like that."

"I think that as much as I would love there to be an answer, this time there just isn't."

"I can't live with that Wilson."

House scuffs his sneaker through the snow marking a little line of defence against the road and him.

"You have to face the fact that perhaps you will never know why she did what she did."

"Something must have happened. Seventy year old women don't just run around the streets like animals. Something made her do that."

"There are a thousand possibilities. You can't swirl all this around in a centrifuge and then wait for some kind of result. Who knows what went on?"

Wilson's harsh response forces House to look up before he chalks it down to another knot in the fabric of their friendship, such as it stands. "That's it? That's all you can say?!"

"Sometimes it comes down to a horrible accident. Sometimes it's nothing more than that. I'm sorry House, I really, really am."

House willingly takes Wilson's proffered hand and doesn't mind accepting the help he needs to get his frozen ass up of the sidewalk.

When this is all over at the end of tomorrow, there will still be Wilson and he's glad for that, despite the ugly edge driven between them of late.

Just today to get through then.

"Don't drive yourself crazy. Don't think further than today. Just take it as it comes, one day at a time."

When did he turn into one of those people who took comfort in the kind of empty therapy doled out freely at times like these?

House and Wilson stumble and slide in the snow back to Blythe's home and every step they take is laden with unspoken words.

Grief is starting to settle on House, in for the long haul. It's starting to feel familiar; a constant companion every bit as terrible as his leg. The drinking seems like years ago and he feels like a different man, someone he doesn't know.

Somewhere, tiny as an atom, a sliver of freedom rings out. Some part of him has noticed that the familial chain of command has gone. He feels sort of liberated and unbearably full of loss all at the same time. He doesn't let himself dwell on that idea for too long, it seems dangerous and morally bankrupt; even for him. It is something he will come back to later, he is sure of that. For now then, he has to get back to the house, pack up his mother's life into neat cardboard boxes and wait for tomorrow.

_Hurrah for Iyimgrace, braving the fickle capslock button on my laptop. For this, I am thankful. Oh, and I tried to add this to my last chapter but failed miserably… the piece of music House was listening to was: 'The lark Ascending', by Vaughn Williams. Check it out, it is seriously beautiful._


	13. Chapter 13

**The Irrelevant Bug, Chapter 13**

The thing about going to funerals is the innate sense of foreboding they bring coupled with idiotic family gathering from far and wide. A bunch of people you don't really know and haven't seen in decades who have supposedly changed your diaper and wiped your snotty nose, all clamour to invest just how sorry they are. The hand shaking and the solemnity and the platitudes and endless rounds of 'sorry for your loss', 'she was a great woman'; all of it means nothing unless the person saying it has some sort of genuine connection to the deceased and isn't just caught up in the occasion, the morbid reveler who gets off on going to funerals.

If the grief is raw though, then that's different. Then it's a case of move, walk as directed, follow the guys in their professional black clothing and hope you end up doing and saying the right thing. Trying to choke down on a million unsaid thoughts and a million unknowable emotions, like an eight year old who's supposed to be too brave to cry. Not knowing how you're supposed to feel and not caring how you're supposed to feel is at once liberating and terrifying. Then that just leaves numb nothingness dribbling out at inopportune moments like needing to pee and being stuck on the bus, or nowhere near a bathroom.

House feels trapped not trusting himself to speak because if he does, he might cry, and then he might never stop. Worse, his other option is constant mindless chattering for fear that if he stops and thinks for even just a second about the day ahead, all the rage and the fear and the terrible, horrible pain bubbling at the surface, may tumble out and scorch anyone in its path.

He waits, hovering just inside the front door. He has never felt this nervous and he dearly doesn't want this day to start. Once he closes the front door and gets into the car, then he'll be on his way to his mother's funeral and he doesn't know how to deal with that.

He can hear Wilson putting the final touches to his most austere suit upstairs in the guest room. His aunt is pottering around in the living room, getting the good glasses out for the wake later on. House waits.

It all seems like a flimsy construct designed to make sense of something that doesn't make sense. How can someone be a part of your life and then just not _be _anymore? It's driving him crazy. His mother is dead. His mother ran out into the middle of her insanely quiet road at some god-forsaken hour of the morning and was killed and he really can't begin to explain how much that sucks.

He stabs at the edge of his mother's carpet and loosens the strands of the weave. The hooks and loops some kid in India probably wasted most of their childhood making in some cramped factory, peel away easily and House feels like some ridiculous metaphor is playing out against his wishes.

He chugs down a couple of Vicodin and almost chokes when one of the acrid pills sticks in his throat. Actually, he likes the taste even though they are designed for exactly the opposite reason. He's not sure if that has anything to do with the fact that the tremor in his hand and the twitch in his jaw might go away if he takes enough.

Turning to the mirror hanging above the umbrella stand, he straightens his tie and checks out the bruising on the side of his face. Deep purple, with a side of yellow, healing tissue decorates the length of his jaw and as he fingers the edges of the damage, he thinks back to his mother's body in the funeral home. He imagines all the congealed blood resting under the surface of the contusions on her skin, no longer needed to keep its host going.

"How you holding up Greg? Honey?"

He hadn't realized that his aunt had come into the hallway and as he swipes at the few tears creeping out of his eyes, he thinks she may have spotted the weakness.

"Car isn't here yet." Well, what else can he say?

"It's a little early yet sweet heart."

"Ok."

"Can you give me a hand back here? I just want to make a bit more space, for later."

He follows dumbly and finds himself surprised at the appearance of the living room. The fire in the grate has warmed the room despite the icy-cold temperature of the rest of the house. His shoulders relax for just a minute and he really expects his mother to be sitting in the chair by the window, knitting or reading.

"I want to move this sofa a little so I can squeeze another chair in here."

He feels like reminding her that he won't actually be much use. Instead, he leans his cane against the wall and shoves at the sofa moving it just the right amount, despite his leg and despite his lack of confidence. He's glad to be thinking about his physical limitations for a few minutes anyway.

Aunt Sarah brushes the arm of the sofa to smooth it over and stands back finally satisfied with the way the room looks.

"Yes, that will do the trick. What do you think, Greg?"

"Yeah, looks…" he can't bring himself to finish the sentence.

A purposeful knock at the door shakes them from the domestic pretense masking the unsaid.

They stare at each other and neither one wants to be the one to actually welcome death into the house. For the last week, this place has been a refuge, a place to hide in the comfort of unfamiliarity. House, his aunt, Mary, Wilson have been working each other out, assessing the hurt, and the measure of grief in each other and trying not to remember the last time they had had to function as a family united in any kind of cause.

House hears Wilson thunder down the stairs and shout as he goes, "I'll get it!"

Still locked onto his aunt's eyes, House feels his heart hammer in his chest and doesn't think he can keep up with this level of stress. Surely some kind of inbuilt self-limiter will kick in and that would be it, game over.

The footsteps coming up the hallway get closer and there doesn't seem to be any way that he can avoid what lies ahead. The funeral iconography of men in black suits shaking each other's hands and women dabbing at their eyes trying not to cry too much is all headed his way. He is the bereaved, the focus of sympathy. He has to hold this together and be strong, even though he wants nothing more than to sleep until this all over and this new pain has settled into his very fabric, informed his day to day.

The door opens and Wilson holds it open for the man from the funeral home, the one with the scoliosis and the deep voice.

"Doctor House?"

"Yes."

"It's time sir, when you are ready."

"Yes." House thinks he's going to be sick.

All he can think about is how this all feels like it's happening to someone else. He follows the strange little man out to the front door and turns back for some sort of reassurance from somewhere, or something.

Wilson is helping his aunt with her things and doesn't notice him.

This is it then, he's alone. Nobody to hide behind and nobody to tell him that this is going to work out alright somehow.

He turns back around and steps out through the front door. The imposing limousine waits patiently in the street turning it's engine over and puffing out plumes of hot exhaust into the frosty air.

"It's going to be alright, House." Wilson whispers.

He didn't realize that all this time, Wilson had been right behind him, watching his back. House can't form a coherent sentence and so nods his thanks with a tight movement. He is grateful, relieved that Wilson is here with his silent support and just the right words. They walk on with House's aunt following behind leaving footsteps in the deep, cold snow leading away from the house.

The sky is filled with weighty clouds, readying to throw snowflake upon snowflake down across the earth and those who walk it and House steps nearer and nearer toward the next phase of his life, un-tethered yet weighted down with grief.

When the car doors close and they are all seated on sleek leather seats, the first of the day's snowflakes tumble like feathers floating down from the sky. House tries to watch a lone flake and follow it's journey to the ground. It flutters here and there, catching a ride on some tiny stream of warm air, sending it wildly off its original course. Eventually it makes it to road and after a second, House can't make it out as it joins the rest in the blanket of whiteness covering the outside world. Its irrelevance and its uniqueness taking equal part in its beauty and its very existence.

_A/N: Big, big thanks to Iyimgrace, she's the eighth wonder of the world. This isn't the chapter I thought it would be but who am I to argue with the muses?! Continuing thanks to everyone reading, and to those who review. You make my day, you really do._


	14. Chapter 14

**The Irrelevant Bug, Chapter 14**

Wilson stands shoulder to shoulder with House on the porch of the funeral home. He nods and smiles politely as man after woman after man clutch at House's free hand and tell him how sorry they are.

House is on autopilot. Wilson hears him mutter socially acceptable stock phrases as he thanks people for coming and can't help but think what great bribery material this would all be; if it weren't so damned inappropriate.

When it seems like there can't possibly be any more guests, Wilson and House go inside and try to ignore the biting cold numbing their extremities. House pauses when it comes to pushing open the double doors leading into the room where gathered mourners await his arrival. Swiping at his runny nose and watery eyes, Wilson can see his friend is in shock, that this whole day isn't going to hit him for some time to come. There's a desperate look in his eyes, like every inch of him wants to run but he is bound to the inescapable, locked into a process that isn't going to end with anything positive.

Wilson pats his shoulder and nods, hoping this will give him enough encouragement to move into the main room.

House clings to Wilson's gaze and looks like a deer in the road, knowing at once that the inevitable is about to occur matter what he does or says.

In a bizarre parody of a wedding march, Wilson stays one pace behind as House lurches up the aisle between the seats laid out uniformly. People turn trying to conceal their prying eyes, and Wilson feels vulnerable, exposed and embarrassed. He briefly wonders whether anybody here actually knows who House is.

They take their seats at the front of the room and the service begins. A hushed silence falls across the room and the prerequisite number of people cough politely waiting for the master of ceremonies to speak.

When just the right amount of time has passed to become uncomfortable, House's cane falls from its position and the clang it makes echoes around the room. House scrambles to pick it up and places it on his lap, gripping it tightly, his only defence against the gathered crowd.

The man from the funeral home works his way through the 'right' words for the occasion and Wilson winces at how House has been right; none of this is helpful in any way. What you need to hear at a time like this is how damn unfair it is, how it's ok to let go and scream about how horrible this all feels.

He has spent so much time convincing his patients of the need for a 'good' death with everything arranged so that knowing you are going to die feels easier. He wonders why nobody has told him to shut the hell up yet, how nobody has just outright punched him in the face for daring to _know_ how best to deal with the impending end of your life. He had always thought it would be better to be hit by a bus and that would be the end of that. Now he's not so sure and he can't work out which way is up. Like a death sentence, this is all so much harder on those left to carry on and try to figure out some new version of their life, albeit with a gaping maw sucking at your very life-blood.

Lost in maudlin thoughts, Wilson is shocked when House brushes past him and takes a minute to convince himself that he's not making a limp for it. It feels like a dream watching House climb up the couple of steps to the lectern to say a goodbye to his mother, to honour her death according to ritual and tradition. House shuffles his notes and Wilson has no doubt in his mind that they are already in absolute perfect order.

"So… " House coughs and Wilson thinks for a nano-second that he won't be able to see this through. He has become a bit too used to thinking that House is about to fail, to let everybody down. The truth is, he hasn't yet and he won't now. Wilson knows this. "This is uh… this is supposed to be the time when we let my mother go and hold her closer to us all at the same time. I'm supposed to tell you some amusing anecdote from my childhood and you're all supposed to laugh and enjoy it and take something of my mother away with you that you didn't have before. I have lots of wonderful memories of my mother but… they're mine."

Wilson isn't sure whether House has the strength to see this through, but he knows he is no judge of the man anymore.

There's a pause, House coughs then carries on, duty-bound. "We're all here because my mother was a part of your life; be it as a member of our family, as a friend or as your teacher. You will all have your own memories of her, and want to remember her in your own way. That is the right way, the way you remember her, for good, or for bad.

I'm not going to try and immortalize her. My mother was a wonderful woman. If you knew her at all, then you know that as well as I do. So… I owe her… she supported me through a lot of stuff and I wouldn't be the man I am today if it weren't for her. Most of all, she loved me. That's all."

Struggling to follow House's words, once again Wilson's thoughts turn to his own mother, as they have so many times this last week. He swallows hard against the flood of tears threatening to pour down from his eyes and can't bear to look at House when he comes back to his seat for fear of destabilizing whatever fragile structure he is using to get through. Bowing his head, all he can do is lamely pat his friend on the shoulder. It's a poor imitation of support, comfort whatever, but he is bound by the complicated rules of masculinity and friendship. He really wants to hug House and tell him everything will be okay, but this isn't allowed and he knows it isn't going to be alright any time soon.

When it's all over, and Wilson feels strong enough to lift his head, to face House, he stands up and begins the next phase of the mourning farce. He mills about, not too far from House and shakes some more hands agreeing endlessly that _it was a lovely service_ and that Blythe's son _had done very well to deliver such a eulogy_.

The congregation drift out to the snow and their cars, ready to drink and eat in Blythe's memory and Wilson wonders when he got so jaded. He doesn't let himself dwell on his friendship with House being to blame; he had always been an ass, just one good at hiding it.

Eventually, Wilson and House find themselves to be the last two in the room with the casket braced on its stand behind them, waiting to meet its grizzly end in the furnace.

"So… lots of people are going to a restaurant down town. Something your uncle has put together I think."

"No."

"But, I think you need to be there, it might be… helpful?" He feels like a tool before he's even finished saying the words.

"No."

"Okay…" he replies demanding some further explanation through a particularly expressive lift of the eyebrow.

"I don't need to."

"But…" there wasn't much point in trying to dissuade him, Wilson knew that. Still,

"All these people trying to tell me about my mom, shoving photographs of her with their spawn in my face. I don't need to be part of that. That can all go on without me."

"Well… okay then." It is all Wilson can think to say.

He wonders about the logistics of actually getting back to Blythe's house and briefly about the rest of the congregation. After the years of knowing House though, he knows better than to push, and better to expect anything other than a blatantly obscure refusal to partake in the norm.

He follows House out of the funeral home trudging through the fresh snow. They leave deep footprints in their uneven wake and Wilson knows he will always remember this day. It's going to leave a deep and painful brand on House, just as fresh and raw as his for Amber. They are united then in their grief, in the terrible loneliness only a death like this can cause. Two lost shadows roaming un-tethered on their own winding paths.

_Marvellous amounts of thanks to Iyimgrace as usual, she is splendid. Sorry for the delay, you can blame Ofsted (British ref, sorry). Anyway, normal service should be resumed now and a one or two or three chapters left to run. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing!_


	15. Chapter 15

**The Irrelevant Bug, Chapter 15**

Sitting on the step outside his mother's backdoor, House smokes one of the cigarettes he'd made the limo stop for on the way back. He had made it through the day, he had been polite, he had said the right words, done the right things. His mother would have been proud.

As he and Wilson had walked out of the funeral home, he had taken one last look at his mother's casket. He couldn't help but think of how much she would have decomposed by now; if she had been left to nature rather than forced through some death ritual of modern society. By trade, he could figure out just how bad she would smell and where the blood would have pooled and congealed. It gave, and gives, him a strange sort of comfort, something tangible with which to define this whole thing, whatever it is.

The decision to have her cremated is the only thing he could have done. She would have wanted it, and he doesn't want to let her down in death as he had in life by not visiting her grave. The weird and wonderful stories he's heard about cremation spring to mind and try as he might to bat them away, he can't help but dwell on burning times and ash remnants. Thoughts of his mother burning in the raging flames, though technically flawed, consume him and he can think of nothing else.

Waiting for his mother's dusty remains is the last thing he needs to do on this trip. When the urn arrives, he will be free to head back home, free to exist as the last House. A small part of him wants to stay, hide from the reality awaiting his return. There's been a focus down here, a new task to complete each day. Like working on a case, it's the kind of distraction he needs if he wants to pretend to be any kind of normal.

He breathes out a lungful of smoke, curling it around his mouth, making it billow and stream into the cold night air. He sucks in hard and the tip glows fiercely red like a friendly beacon in the darkness.

The back door squeaks open and House turns to see his aunt coming over along with his mother's friend, whose name he can't remember for the life of him.

'Hey there Greg, honey.'

House turns back and lets out another slow, languishing plume of thick, smoke, 'Hey.' All this sympathy has his Nietzscian persuasions running for the hills.

"God, it's freezing…" his aunt begins. "So, I thought your eulogy was lovely."

"Thanks."

"There were a lot of people there today huh? A lot of people to whom your mother was very special." Mary added placing votives with tea lights around the floor below them.

"Yeah, I guess."

"I was glad to see so many members of the family there. It brings such comfort don't you think?"

House is briefly bemused by this tag team guerilla counseling session before he sinks back into the comfortable swell of his grief and draws once more on the cigarette. "Empty words don't mean anything to me. Just because they sound pretty doesn't mean they carry any meaning. They're irrelevant, pointless. Just what people think are the right things to say in a void of not knowing what to do."

There's a silence and House watches the tiny candles twinkle, casting weak light out into the dark of the night before anyone dares to speak again.

"Greg, I know you haven't seen your mother in a long while, but I just wanted you to know how happy she was. She had really moved into her new life very well. I think all her friends there today were very glad to have known her; I know I am." He wouldn't have thought his aunt had it in her to begin this conversation. She'd always kept quiet, let her husband do the talking; much like his mother.

"Right."

In the lull of a loaded silence, the back door squeaks open once more and House laments the fact that if his father had still been alive, this is exactly the kind of thing that he would not have been able to live with. The irony is quite beautiful and House smirks involuntarily at the thought.

A new bottle of Maker's Mark clinks as it is placed beside him by the benevolent hand of Wilson.

"I thought we might like to raise a glass of something good in memory of your mom… House?"

House can think of no witty reply or anything that would come close to revealing how glad he is of both Wilson's timing and his taste in bourbon; old faithful drink, old faithful friend. He pours shots into the little glasses and hands them to his aunt, to his mom's friend, to Wilson and keeps one back for himself. "To my mom." He raises his glass and the impromptu wake for his mother begins.

"To Blythe"

"My sister in law."

"My friend."

For a while, they sit and drink in silence. The Maker's burns its way down despite the frozen ground sparkling all around them. Each is lost in their own memories of Blythe and each battles against the desire to cry and the desire to laugh.

Weirdly, House finds himself the first to break the reverie. "How can you be walking around getting the groceries one minute, then dead the next? How does that work?" He almost regrets giving his thoughts any kind of airing, but whatever, it's out there now.

The air hums with three brains trying to work out how to answer what may, or may not be a rhetorical question.

"You know Greg? I didn't know your mom for many years, but I do think of her as my very best friend. She would have hated to go like this." Mary starts, tentatively.

"Brave." House had always admired those with enough chutzpah to get to the bones of the matter.

"Hear me out. She worried so much about you. Nearly everything she did had you as some point of reference somewhere along the line."

"Like I said, brave." It had been a while since he'd been part of a conversation that was turning sour. It actually felt kind of refreshing.

"Sometimes we have to deal with the hand we're dealt. It doesn't seem like it now, but I know there's a greater truth to this, some higher meaning. What makes us str-"

"Don't."

"What?"

"Don't finish what you were going to say." House fumbles beside him for the bottle and on reaching it, pours another shot into Mary's glass before she can go on.

"Ok. I'm sorry. You have me there." She laughs as she drinks and House's respect for her grows as he watches her handle the Maker's without a second thought. "You know, your mother had a fierce way with geese."

"I know."

"You know?"

"I was… eight, or nine. We were staying with my aunt here and they had these geese, vicious bastards."

Sarah clutches his arm and chimes in, "Oh, I remember that too! Your father was overseas, you guys were staying with Bob and I, and you didn't know what a goose was!"

"I went out in the yard and was trying to feed them some bread or something. They all rounded on me and were hissing and I was terrified." House continues, gaze fixed firmly on the tiny flames below him.

"_You_, were scared?! This I would pay to see!" Wilson adds.

"They were really big! I was eight!"

"Your mom told me how she just marched on out there and beat them off with her rolling pin?" Mary prompts.

"Yeah! I saw the whole thing from the kitchen window. Greg, was surrounded by the geese, they were bigger than him and they were trying to protect their young. He was crying, big tears rolling out of those eyes and Blythe just stomped out and beat the biggest one on the beak. She grabbed Greg by the hand and dragged him out, geese hissing and spitting and nipping at his little legs." His aunt laughs as she remembers the image.

"To Blythe, protector of innocent children!" Mary said as she clinked her glass against Sarah's and Wilson's.

House suspects Mary doesn't realize the full extent of the truth behind her words, but that is all in the distant past now. Now, he is just Greg House, orphaned, parentless. He takes a large draught of his drink, finishing the shot in one mouthful and reaches for the bottle for a refill.

He sits back, leaning against the glass of the kitchen door and lets the conversation and the memories wash over him. Tuning out, he hears only a few odd words that seem to do a good job of summing up his mother's achievements and her life story. He feels the warmth of the Maker's tingling in his mouth down to the pit of his belly and he feels actually quite relaxed, comfortable in this strange assortment of people touched by his mother. He takes one more drag on his cigarette then crushes it beneath his foot. Marking the crisp white snow with ash.

"Greg? We need your help." Said Mary, shaking some peculiar shape at him in the darkness.

"Yeah, come on over here honey."

"What is that?" he asks as he lumbers over. He can just about make out a large, creamy oblong from the pale light of the tea lights.

"It's a Chinese lantern. We need your help to get it lit and send it on up to the sky."

"Why?"

"Your supposed to make a wish, send a prayer, whatever you want. The thing is, we all need to hold it together while I light it, support it while it fills with hot air."

"Oh." He doesn't think he's ever sounded more like a dumb ass.

He makes his way slowly over to Wilson, his aunt, and Mary smiling at him, holding the lantern by a ring of metal in front of them. He grabs a free bit and watches as Mary strikes his lighter and holds the flame to the pad he presumes is soaked in some sort of paraffin.

She gets it lit and their faces glow with the warmth of the flame flickering tiny like a distant memory. The flame grows and heats the air above it and the lantern fills with warm air, swelling the paper, making it crackle and rustle as it billows out to its full potential. Soon enough, the lantern resembles a hot air balloon and they feel the pull as the lantern strains, wanting to float up into the sky, begin its journey.

Mary closes her eyes and House secretly admires her inner hippy for this wacky idea. His aunt follows suit and Wilson too, shuts his eyes tight. He has to admit, the whole process captivates him. He assumes they are all making some sort of wish, saying some sort of prayer and he is consumed by the moment. He's always had a perverse fascination with faith, and with people confronting their own beliefs and ideologies.

"It's time." Mary whispers, somberly, reverently.

One by one, House, his aunt, Wilson and Mary let go of the lantern and it rises up into the night sky. House watches as it floats higher and higher, phoenix-like against the fresh snow beginning to fall anew.

The balloon of light, glows brightly, serenely and climbs higher and higher, wandering first left, then right, dropping briefly then zooming up once again.

They watch as it travels through the sky, casting its strange glow against the clouds and it seems like there is no limit to its possibilities.

Squinting, the assembled group clink their glasses together and raise them up after the lantern.

It's beautiful, and House feels all the stagnant, pent up confusion thawing, floating up and away along with it. He wipes tears away with the back of his hand and he feels something in his chest, give way. He breathes easy and fills his chest with a lung-full of fresh air.

His mother is dead; he is alone. This will form a vibrant thread in the weave of his life and somehow, that feels okay.

He turns his back on the lantern and on the little gathering watching it go. He heads back into his mother's house and knows he is ready to leave this place far behind him. His own journey must now begin, free from the suffocating wishes of his father, free from the loving arms of his mother.

Greg House against the world; for good, or for bad.

_Okay, that's it folks. It's the end of the road for this irrelevant bug. I have loved writing this and I'm quite sad to let it go. Huge amounts of thanks go to Iyimgrace for seeing me through this, honestly, she's one super-cool lady. Thank you too, to everyone who has given this a chance and especially to those of you who have taken the time to write me a review. I appreciate everything you say more than you know. Thanks! _

_Spot, out._


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